the.com/agar
The gel that lets bacteria throw house parties humans can actually watch.
means A gelatin-like substance made from seaweed, used in labs to grow colonies of microorganisms and in kitchens as a vegetarian thickener.
from From the Malay word 'agar-agar,' meaning jelly, referring to the dried seaweed extract used across Southeast Asia long before Western science got hold of it. In the late 1800s a microbiologist's wife (working in a German lab) reportedly suggested using it to solidify bacterial culture media, since the gelatin scientists had been using melted at body temperature and got devoured by microbes besides — agar did neither. The kitchen ingredient quietly became a lab essential.
- source
- Extracted from red algae, not plants
- discovery
- A lab wife suggested it for jam, 1881
- superpower
- Stays solid at body temperature, unlike gelatin
- other job
- Vegan gelatin substitute in desserts